Rooftop solar’s dominant summer: Homes and businesses outpower brown coal

Rooftop solar systems across Australia set a new record across the Summer, supplying more of Australia’s electricity than brown coal and dispatching more energy to the grid than all other renewable energy sources.

New figures published by Australia’s Clean Energy Council on Tuesday show that small-scale rooftop solar systems provided 14 per cent of Australia’s electricity needs during the summer months.

Total rooftop solar output during summer reached 8,046GWh across more than 3 million homes, up by an impressive 19.5% on the previous year – an increase likely spurred on by a surge in solar installations as consumers seek to escape rising energy bills.

The strength of rooftop solar’s role during Australia’s summer is demonstrated in the fact that it outperformed brown coal as well as all other renewable energy sources including grid-scale wind farms and solar farms.

“There is no doubt with inflation and cost of living pressures, people are turning to rooftop solar in record numbers,” said Kane Thornton, chief executive of the Clean Energy Council.

“Thousands of Australians are switching to rooftop solar and seeing their benefits to their hip pockets and the environment. In fact, payback periods for rooftop solar are now at near record-low levels, at 3.4 years for a 7kW system.

“We’re seeing a fundamental shift; consumers are becoming energy generators, making their own clean energy, reducing their bills and taking on the electricity companies.”

State by state, South Australia remains the country’s leading example of the role rooftop solar can play, but is being closely chased by New South Wales which was the most improved of all the states.

The Clean Energy Council has also generated a list of Australia’s top postcodes for rooftop solar.